1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless communication apparatus capable of wireless communication with a public wireless network and wireless communication with an image communication apparatus, and an image communication apparatus capable of wireless communication with a wireless communication apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Portable communication apparatus has recently become remarkably popular owing to progress in semiconductor technology, etc. Also, communication by telephone is shifting from calling to a number, to calling to a person.
Also, most portable wireless communication apparatus now has a character mail function and a simplified web browsing function, in addition to voice communication. In consideration of the further improvement in the communication ability of portable wireless communication apparatus of the next generation, it is anticipated that the image taking function and the communication function for such image will play an important role.
It has already been tried to digitize and transmit an image taken with a camera, and its practical value is increasing by the improvement in the communication speed and by the higher image quality in the digital camera. In fact the digital camera is recently showing remarkable progress in its performance and has become capable of taking an image with an image quality close to that of a conventional camera utilizing the silver halide-based photographic film for the printout of so-called L-size. Therefore, in comparison with the time and work required for taking an image with the conventional camera, developing the film and printing the image with a minilab or the like and digitizing and transmitting thus obtained image, it will be far more efficient to transmit the image with a digital camera and a portable wireless communication apparatus.
Also, such image communication with the digital camera and the portable wireless communication apparatus matches the recent trend of the modern society toward diversification of the communication needs and toward multimedia.
However, in order to replace the conventional image communication utilizing digitization of an image obtained with a conventional camera by the digital camera and the electronic mail function, it is necessary to be able to transfer the image data to be transmitted from the digital camera to the personal computer and to transmit thus transferred image data to a desired address by means of the image transmitting function of the personal computer.
In the communication in such form, however, it is necessary to connect the digital camera and the personal computer with a cable and to operate the personal computer, which not only interferes with the convenience of the user but also makes it difficult promptly to transmit the image taken with the digital camera. It has therefore been difficult to execute communication exploiting the prompt operability of the digital camera.
It has also been proposed to incorporate the digital camera function in the portable wireless communication apparatus for achieving the image communication without the mentioned cabling, but such configuration limits the development in the performance of the digital camera despite the rapid progress in the function of the digital camera itself, and, in such integrated configuration, the digital camera has to be carried even in a case where portable wireless communication apparatus alone is utilized without the digital camera function, leading to a limitation on the dimension, weight or usable time of the equipment.
In short, the conventional configuration of utilizing the digital camera and the personal computer for image communication is associated with a drawback that the taken image cannot be immediately transmitted, whereas the conventional integrated configuration consisting of the digital camera and the portable wireless communication apparatus is associated with a drawback of poor portability.